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Some questions on 7th chords. Do they always contain 4 notes? Also I saw the E7 chord in my book, but I don't get it at all. There's an E, G, A and D in this chord. However E-D is a major 6th? I also saw a 7th chord with 2 A's, but that's an octave instead of a minor/major 7th?

Hi Stabby and welcome! Levine's book is on my wish-list.

It may help you to know that the names of chords can be very confusing to the uninitiated. After a while, you get so used to them, you forget how confusing they are.

If someone says 'E7' what they mean is 'E dominant 7th' aka an E major chord with a flattened 7th. (It's all short-hand, and you've just got to know it, you can't guess). So the E major chord is E, G# and B. The D is the flattened 7th (that's not a 6th). It's the 7th that gives it it's egde, the tension in it.

A C7 would be C, E, G and Bb.

And yes, you may sometimes see it written 'E7' but not all the notes are actually there.

Is that enough, or would you like me to tell you about minor 7ths, major 7ths, and minor major 7ths too?

Edit: Sorry, made a mistake before. I've corrected it now. E major has an B in it, not a A. The heat here is boiling my brain.

If someone says 'E7' what they mean is 'E dominant 7th' aka an E major chord with a flattened 7th. (It's all short-hand, and you've just got to know it, you can't guess). So the E major chord is E, G# and A. The D is the flattened 7th (that's not a 6th). It's the 7th that gives it it's egde, the tension in it.

And I still don't get the A7. It has two A's which doesn't make it a 7th but an octave?

Also, what's the best way to understand this? Right now I count the keys between two notes and that's how I find out the interval. For example 3 keys in between is a major third; an octave minus 1 key is a major 7th, and an octave minus 2 keys a minor 7th. It works for now, but I don't feel it's the best way to do it for me. I do the same thing for chords by the way: in a minor chord you press the first key, leave 2 keys open, press the next key, leave 3 open, press the next. For a major it's the other way around (first 3 empty, then 2). Everyone probably has their own way, but there really should a better way for me.

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Is that enough, or would you like me to tell you about minor 7ths, major 7ths, and minor major 7ths too?

Very well in all keys. Make this part of your daily technical exercises. Also all 12 major scales. You must know those inside out. Practice them daily. When you're bored, find a new exercise that makes you practice them more.

Stabby -- The book is showing an E minor 7, not E7 (which is a dominant 7). The reason being, E has a - sign after the letter. E- means E minor 7. The right hand is voiced G, D, A. The G is the flatted 3rd, the D is the flatted 7th, and the A is the 4th. The 4th is commonly used in minor 7ths.

You have a good start in recognizing intervals, but, you need to eventually be able to picture the keyboard and just "SEE" a major third, minor third -- or whatever the interval. You will see it as a puzzle piece fitting together. You can tackle it one interval at a time. Try to spot a minor 3rd starting on any note (First you will be counting those 3 half steps)

normally, you don't find which chords fits with which scale, but you do the opposite.Which scale fits with which chord.

That can be debated, but for the purpose of learning scales, here are a couple of ideas:

- play the scales up and down, 2-3 octaves. You have to be very comfortable playing those scales in the simplest way. Play them slow at first. You do not have to make this into a speed exercise.

- You could practice playing 2-5-1 in each key with the Left Hand, while playing a simple up and down scale with the right. 2 5 1's are explained in Levine. Your example shows 2-5 in 3 keys going down one step each time. That's a good way to practice it. So for example C-7 | F7 | Bb-7 | Eb7 | Ab-7 | Db7 etc...While playing the right handBb maj scale | AbMaj scale | Gbmaj Scale etc...

Simple shell voicings as explained in chapter 3 are best because for the left hand, you must master the Root 3rd and 7th with various inversion. What the book says is good here.

You can also improvise with a flow of continuous 8th notes, staying with the major scale.

All these will get your fingers and ear to get comfortable with the sounds of those scales over these essential chord progression.

There are millions of ways to practice your scales, Levine offers some ways, but you can make up your own.

Doing something difficult with the LH while scales with the RH is a very good way to internalize those scales.

Playing 2 against 3, meaning 8th notes in one hand and triplets in the other hand, is also a great way to internalize the scale.

Stabby I see you are really getting this, but can I just address this one question:

"And I still don't get the A7. It has two A's which doesn't make it a 7th but an octave?"

Whatever your chord is (for an A7, that's A, C#, E and G) you can put those notes anywhere, and as many times as you want, on the piano, and it's still an A7. You can put 1 note in the LH and 3 in the RH, or 2 in the LH and 3 in the RH, or 3 in the LH and 1 in the RH, or you can use your big toe to put an extra A way down at the bottom - it's still an A7. You can put the C# above the E, or the other way round. It's still an A7.

Whatever your chord is (for an A7, that's A, C#, E and G) you can put those notes anywhere, and as many times as you want, on the piano, and it's still an A7. You can put 1 note in the LH and 3 in the RH, or 2 in the LH and 3 in the RH, or 3 in the LH and 1 in the RH, or you can use your big toe to put an extra A way down at the bottom - it's still an A7. You can put the C# above the E, or the other way round. It's still an A7.

Thanks, but I already knew that! I just didn't get why there's two same notes in a chord. Apparantly one of the A's is not part of the chord but part of the melody.

Stabby I didn't look at your notation until just now, so looks like everyone got it all figured out.

Just a note on Levine's book. It's great for reference but it's not in a specific order that's necessarily good for beginner. The better beginner book is Metaphors for the Musician - Randy Halberstadt. It goes in a more logical order. And is pretty close to what we present in this thread. BTW - this thread pretty much follows the flow of how I was taught.

For example, in Levine's book, you are faced with "So What"/"Maiden Voyage" Voicings so early in the book. Heck, that would take years to master those tunes. They are not exactly level 101. It can be done but you'd have to switch back and forth in the book and skip advanced topics.

Also there's no rhythmic discussion whatsoever, it is heavily focused on "voicings". Technique related to Rhythm and Swing in particular is the most difficult aspect of Jazz IMO (as TLT and even Swinging Barb can attest).

A friend of mine showed me how he replaced a dominant 7 chord with its altered chord to have a cool jazz sound (and then using a tritone substitution). At the time I understood his explanation, but I can't seem to reproduce it now lol.

Anyone here who can tell me a bit more about altered chords and how and when to use them? Or when I can find some more info on this?

As a simple explanation, if you take a regular rootless voicing of a Dominant 7 chord and move it up or down a Tritone interval, you have in effect played an Alt Chord.

So this is the way to implement this without having to worry about actually figuring out the extensions. A rootless voicing for a dominant will include 3,9,13,b7.

Alt chords can be used to replace a dominant 7 during soloing because the root played by the bass player will not be in conflict. However, it is not usually used without some planning when playing the head (melody) since you have to worry about conflicts with the melody notes.

Alt Chords are often used too when doing a series of chromatic chord movements since the extensions provide excellent voice leading. For example, if your progression is Ab7-G7 (downward), it will sound good as Ab7-G7Alt since there will be common tones with Ab7 (which is the same as Ab7-Db7 but using an inversion with little movement).

Now one more thing. An Alt chord is officially a Dominant 7 with the following additional tones: b9, #9, #5. But in actual playing, often only one of these tension notes is essential to the Alt sound and usually that's #9 and #5. So I typically voice an Alt with just 3 notes. Often just 3, b7 and #9 or #5.

1. Integrating pickup notes into the improvisation. Also repeated quavers at the end of phrases.

2. Playing with the 'nome set to beats 2 and 4.

3. Syncopating those 3 notes.

4. Getting comfy with 1/5/7, 1/3/7 and 1/3.

5. Arpeggiating.

Arpeggiating with the RH, that is.

The 1/5/7, 1/3/7 feels good now. The business with the metronome works when I get into it, but getting into it can take a while. I can sit for a good minute going 'one TWO three FOUR, no, one two THREE four, no, ONE, ONE, er, dammit, TWO three four ONE. Then once I've got it, I don't want to stop, because it took such an effort to get there! Anyone remember those Magic Eye pictures? It's a bit like that. You don't get it/you get it.

What I've also done is copied (and transposed) the first couple of pages of Knotty's last youtube contribution, and started playing that. Then it all gets terribly confused because I don't know what is tune, what is improvisation, what is how I used to play it, what is on the page, and what deviates from the page (once, but no longer, known as a 'mistake').

Whenever any of this actually comprises four beats in a bar, I'll record.

I just wanted to speak specifically about having good time and what it has to do with Jazz.

Back when I started with my current teacher, he pointed to the pictures of the various masters like Miles Davis, Coltrane, Bill Evans, Thelonius Monk, etc. and asked me, what do they have in common? I didn't know. And he answered that they all have PERFECT TIME.

Reaching the next level in Jazz playing is really mostly about good time. Swing is about good time. Good soloing is about good time. Having good time actually gives you ideas about how to phrase lines.

So, it is really important to focus on this. It doesn't matter how simple the solo is. It doesn't matter if you stick to 4 chord tones per chord on the solo (Coltrane had a Blues tune where he just did this). It comes out as authentic jazz when you have flawless time.

Swing is about positioning notes relative to the beat. Some play on top of the beat and swing hard. Some lay back and swing lightly but it still sounds swinging. Swing loses the effect when the time is inconsistent. As I've said here many times, swing is really about ACCENTS. But that only works if time is precise.

So if you want to develop in Jazz (and heck any sort of piano playing), develop your ears to listen for any inaccuracy in time. If you record yourself, listen when you do a line and notice the time is not 100% perfect. And practice that line until it is perfect.

I do this to myself constantly. Every time I listen to myself play, I become keenly aware if I go out of time. Awareness is step one to cure of rhythm problems. It has helped tremedously as I hear improvement each time. But it's a long process. Those without perfect time are doomed not to make it big (or ever sound authentic).

I would say that time is 80% of the battle in learning jazz. No wonder we spend so much time on swing in this thread.

One more thing. When improvising, break up your lines into small chunks most of the time. There's a reason for this other than the usual "breathing" that everyone refers to. It's because during the moments of silence, you can reattach your brain to the hi hat and reestablish time.

Although you cannot play anything with this advice I just gave here, I believe it is the most important lesson my teacher has ever given me. And his time is just out of this world (which consequently explains his world class pianist status).

In terms of Swing terminology - 'Swing Hard' is close to Triplet Feel (the extreme end of hard which is a ratio of 2:1 for each pair of eights). The opposite direction is to play 'Straight' (even eighths - 1:1 ).

As I've been saying over and over in this thread, the choice to play somewhere near triplet feel to straight eighths is a stylistic choice but it is the accents that really describe the jazz sound. This takes a while to absorb. Sometimes the accents are subtle (like Jarrett's).

As it relates to 'Good Time', a player may choose to play with a Triplet feel or not. But consistency is required for that "feel" to be felt by the listener. If you can't maintain the triplet feel for a consistent amount of time, it sounds bad.

So, acting as a teacher here, I would generally pay more attention to the accuracy of the time than the actual notes played.